Some prefer to instill the basics of upbringing from childhood
Even the country’s former first lady, Bernadette Chirac, intervened in the discussion, which had been taken from the parliamentary hall into the mass media. The wife of former French President Jacques Chirac told France’s ‘Radio Classique’ that she saw nothing wrong with beating an impudent child with a belt. However, parents must know moderation, Madame Chirac believes – one should beat ‘not too hard and not too long.’ Bernadette Chirac considered the proposal to outlaw corporal punishment, put forward by pediatrician and parliamentarian Edwige Antier, who incidentally belongs to the conservative camp in the French Parliament, as ridiculous.
Antier, citing 38 years of experience in pediatrics, claims that the more often and more brutally a child is beaten, the more hypocritical, aggressive and deceitful they become. This point of view, which is held in most European countries, finds no understanding in France, not only in the families of former presidents but also among broad sections of the population. A survey conducted back in 2007 by the European Family Union (UFE) revealed that nine out of ten French parents punish their children using physical force. 95% of the adults surveyed said then that they too had been beaten by their parents as children, and 64% of them are moreover convinced that it was not in vain.
Although most of the country's published literature on child rearing recommends refraining from corporal punishment, many of her fellow pediatricians also disagree with Edwige Antier. 'A spank on the bottom has never caused psychological disorders in any child, if it happens occasionally and is accompanied by explanations of why the child is being punished,' renowned psychologist Myriam Illouz shared her thoughts with journalists from TV channel France 2.
Other arguments of the parliamentarian-pediatrician – that France remains in the minority in Europe and that the abolition of corporal punishment everywhere initially met with misunderstanding – also did not elicit enthusiastic approval even from Edwige Antier’s party colleagues.
Indeed, our western neighbor is one of the few EU countries that are in no hurry to bring legislation into line with the requirements of the European community on a number of issues. The Council of Europe in 2008 called on its members to outlaw corporal punishment. 18 EU states either already complied or submitted to this demand. In Germany, for example, children’s right to ‘non-violent’ upbringing has been enshrined in law since 2000, and in Sweden, where beating children has been banned since 1979, initially 70% of parents opposed the innovation. According to the latest estimates by sociologists, now about 10% are dissatisfied.
Nevertheless, Xavier Bertrand, secretary general of the center-right Union for a Popular Movement, to which Antier belongs, stated that the pediatrician's proposal would not even be discussed: 'She has the right to speak as a pediatrician, but a law that so deeply intrudes into the private lives of citizens cannot be adopted in any way.'
Maxim Smirnov. 